


The Night Tears Us Loose

by CloudAtlas



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Clubbing, F/M, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-15 19:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7235656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lighting in clubs often makes people look weirdly otherworldly, throwing their faces into shadow in unusual ways and drenching them in colour that simultaneously makes them brighter and more washed out. She thinks this guy might be blond. He’s definitely white and taller than her, with great arms, slim hips and wearing the kind of clothes that say he didn’t think too hard before leaving his house but knows he looks good in most things. Including nothing, probably.</p><p>He turns and catches her eye.</p><p>Natasha reassesses. Definitely would look good wearing nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Tears Us Loose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Artemis_Day](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Day/gifts).



> Thank you to **gecko** for beta. Title from Half Light I by Arcade Fire.
> 
> This was not what this story was supposed to be. Not even close. But I am a moron and thought it was due mid July so was taking my sweet time until about a week ago when the _actual_ due date was make known to me, and then I freaked out. So! Sorry. But something else might eventually wing its way to you in the future. So that's something at least.
> 
> cw: sleezy guys in clubs (not Clint) and a situation that implies stalking even though no stalking occurs.

Normally Natasha would hate this, everything too close and too dark and too loud. Not for any deep, troubling reason; just because it’s not her idea of a good time. But tonight is as such that her  _actual_  idea of a good time would be punching the shit out of... oh,  _everyone_ , and James would be really fucking pissed if she landed herself in jail over him so she’s going to go for the next best thing. Namely, getting shitfaced in a club and hopefully finding some hot somebody to have ill-advised sex with. She’ll happily deal with the awkward parting and/or morning after if it’d get this all-consuming anger out of her fucking system.

 _Fuck_  the medical system and  _fuck_  drunk assholes who think they can drive.

Natasha needs another drink.

The bar in the club is about seven people deep, but Natasha has a single-minded determination to get drunk which she facilitates quite nicely with a push-up bra, low cut dress and fucking impeccable make-up. If guys are going to sexualise her, she’s sure as hell going to get something decent out of it.

She gets served in under two minutes. Some guy gives her the stink eye until his eyes drop low enough and she catches his hand just before his manages to slap her ass, digging her nails in enough to leave marks.

“Bitch,” the man spits out, the shape of the word depressingly familiar to Natasha.

“You have no idea,” Natasha replies. Her voice is hardly audible over the music, but it doesn’t matter. Her smile is practically poisonous. She digs her nails in one last time and then disappears into the noise and press of bodies.

She kind of wishes James was here. It’d help him forget, just for a little while, every shitty thing that’s happened to him in the past few weeks. But alcohol and his meds would be a horrible fucking mix and Steve had given her the scariest dead-eyed look when she’d even approached the subject, so she’d left James with Steve and Peggy and struck out on her own.

Probably a good thing too. People always assume she and James are a couple when they go out together. It doesn’t really make hooking up easy for either of them. Natasha should take advantage of the fact he’s not here, actually. She was going to anyway but now it occurs to her, this is  _way_  better. No having to explain that  _no_  that particular hot guy is not  _her_  hot guy because she’s known him since they were seven and  _no_.

Natasha leans against the wall, surveying the room.

Dancing isn’t really her thing, at least not with friends, so her general MO on those occasions she goes out by herself is ‘look alluring and wait for someone to approach her’. It always works and, seeing as she mostly only ever goes out on her own when she’s explicitly decided the night is a  _Get Laid_  night, she doesn’t even feel bad about it. Especially not when she uses the ‘ha you don’t even have a chance, son’ face when some creep shows interest. In fact, James says that face is at least 50% of the reason he goes out with her. “They just look  _so offended_.”

That guy though, she thinks, noticing a man dancing off to her left, that guy definitely has a chance.

Lighting in clubs often makes people look weirdly otherworldly, throwing their faces into shadow in unusual ways and drenching them in colour that simultaneously makes them brighter and more washed out. She thinks this guy might be blond. He’s definitely white and taller than her, with great arms, slim hips and wearing the kind of clothes that say he didn’t think too hard before leaving his house but knows he looks good in most things. Including nothing, probably.

He turns and catches her eye.

Natasha reassesses.  _Definitely_  would look good wearing nothing.

She smirks around the mouth of her beer – guys are a sucker for that. She got the right kind of mouth for it, according to James.

And normally that would be enough – a bit of a pout, some come hither eyes and guys trot after her like she’s the pied piper – but this guy smirks back, gives her a once over and then jerks his head to one side in a pretty obvious  _come here_  gesture. It’s not quite what she was expecting.

Natasha debates for a moment – a very  _brief_  moment – and then downs her beer before slinking through all the shifting bodies towards the guy.

Up close she can see he’s definitely blond, and she can add ‘great pecs and abs’ to the list too, as well as ‘excellent taste in TV’ if his Blue Sun t-shirt is anything to go by. He smiles down at her, his movements surprisingly graceful for a random dude in a club, and she leans in and up so she’s close enough to yell, “I like your t-shirt,” in his ear.

He grins some more before very obviously dragging his gaze over her body, the ‘and I like your dress and more specifically your cleavage’ loud and clear and, even better, with an undercurrent of ‘I know I’m being ridiculous, forgive me’.

That undercurrent is the reason she doesn’t leave.

Natasha gives him an assessing look, as if weighing up whether he’s worth her time, and he waits it out patiently – less like he knows he passes and more like he’d accept what she decides. But she’d decided almost as soon as he’d caught her eye. He’d’ve had to have been a douchebag for her to turn down an opportunity to get those hands on her.

She catches him by the waist of his jeans and pulls him closer so he’s flush against her front, tucking her fingers in at his hipbones to feel searing hot skin across the backs of her knuckles. He’s close enough now that she can smell him, his warm skin-and-detergent scent a welcome relief from the cloying levels of cologne-and-perfume that permeates the rest of the club, and his hands come up to gently hold her upper arms.

“I’m Clint,” he says directly into her ear.

“Natasha,” she replies, sliding her hands around his body and up under his t-shirt. And then, because this was the plan for the night all along, she draws him down to her mouth.

Clint turns out to be a fantastic kisser – slow and thorough in the way that implies he firmly believes kissing to be excellent foreplay – and all the while his hands roam her body, smoothing the material of her dress across her hips and occasionally palming her ass. The crowd moves around them almost as an afterthought; a tide that, along with the music, pull-pushes them and keeps them together.

Natasha loses track of time – like stepping in quicksand; the more she tries to keep track, the more he distracts her. Her mouth feels tender from all the kissing, her skin over-sensitized from every sweep of his hands, and in those moments when they pull apart long enough to catch their breath, Clint bites and sucks at her neck, panting incoherently into her hair.

They’re so close together that Natasha can feel his interest through his jeans.

She’s not one for exhibitionism, but a little part of her brain thinks that she could bend her rule this time. Which is ridiculous. She knows nothing about this guy other than his name, the fact that he’s fucking hot and knows what he’s doing, and that he’s not triggering any of her very well honed ‘creepy guy’ senses.

That shouldn’t be enough, but he’s  _really fucking hot_.

Natasha’s also sort of really regretting choosing a dress tonight, rather than literally  _anything else_  that would mean getting his hands in her panties wouldn’t involve exposing herself completely. She offsets this disappointment by shoving  _her_  hand down  _his_  pants.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he hisses directly into her ear. And then, “Really?  _Here_?”

She bites his collarbone in response and then says, “Then suggest somewhere better.” It’s not really loud enough for him to hear, but it doesn’t have to be – this has gone on long enough that there’s only really one outcome anyway.

“I live –  _holy fucking shit stop_  – ten minutes away,” he pants, grabbing her wrist to  _make_  her stop, which is probably sensible because he feels really good in her hand and they’re still  _in the middle of a crowded dance floor._

So in retaliation she kisses him,  _hard_ , before grabbing his wrist and dragging him out of the club.

When Clint says ‘ten minutes’ he means by cab, which he manages to hail pretty fucking quickly all told. Natasha could have helped – low cut dresses and push up bras are useful for  _so many things_  – but it’s colder outside than she was expecting and also Clint is way more attractive now she can see him without the flashing red-blue-green of the club’s lights. But in a real way; his nose has clearly been broken at least once and his Blue Sun t-shirt has holes in the neck that say it’s about as well loved as Blue Sun t-shirts  _should_  be. Plus, now she gets to see his ass. And it’s a fucking  _great_  ass.

She almost stumbles getting into the cab, her ridiculous heels getting caught between two paving slabs, but Clint catches her and his hands feel so damn warm through the material of her dress that she’s not at all surprised when the cab driver takes one look at them and says, “You wanna fuck, you wait ‘til you get home.”

Which turns out to be  _way fucking sooner than she expected_  because getting out of the cab is like having cold water dumped over her entire body.

She knows this street and she knows those buildings, and she knows them because they’re  _her_  street and  _her_  buildings.

Clint starts along the sidewalk but she doesn’t move – can’t – and it takes him a split second to notice.

“What?” he says, and his voice sounds so different when it’s normal volume and not direct into her ear. Why –  _why_  – were her instincts  _so fucking wrong_?

“Have you been stalking me?” she says, low and dangerous, and distantly she’s aware that the cab has not left, that the guy inside has noticed something is wrong and is  _staying_.

“ _What_?” Clint says, confusion and indignation painted large on his face. He turns to face her, his entire posture defensive in a way that says ‘I won’t know what’s happening’ rather than ‘busted’. And he’s  _not allowed_  to be that good at lying. “No! Why would you – ?”

“You live here?”

She cuts him off, because if she’s right she doesn’t want to hear his excuses – not when she remembers the sound of his voice panted in her ear.

Clint casts around like he has absolutely no idea what the fuck is happening or why everything suddenly went downhill so fast.

“ _Yes_. I’m 1845, there.” He points at the house he was very clearly walking towards; white with a wrap-around porch and a garden that needs some help, and  _you have got to be fucking kidding me._

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“ _Prove it._ ”

“I – ” he looks like he’s about to argue, or ask, or do  _anything_  that’s not exactly what she said, but he must see something in her face because he switches tack and just says, “alright, okay.”

And he walks up on to the porch, digs in his pocket, produces a key and unlocks the door, releasing a scruffy looking golden lab mix that prances around his feet like this is the greatest thing to ever happen to it.

Natasha doesn’t exactly feel relief, but her muscles unlock ever so slightly.

“Miss,” the cab driver’s voice almost makes her jump out of her skin. She hadn’t even heard the door open. “Is everything alright?”

“I think,” she says carefully, making sure she keeps Clint in her line of sight but turning enough so the cab driver knows she’s talking to him, “You’ve just witnessed the freakiest coincidence  _ever_.”

He nods. “I’ll stay until you tell me to go though,” is all he says.

“Thanks.”

“What the hell is going on?” Clint calls plaintively from where he’s still stood by his front door, one hand on the scruff of his now much calmer dog.

Natasha forces her muscles to unlock further, moving close enough to where Clint’s standing so she doesn’t have to shout, but not so close that she’s anywhere on his property.

“You’ve only just moved here, haven’t you?”

And now it’s Clint’s turn to look super fucking suspicious.

“How the hell did you know that?”

Natasha digs into her little purse and brings out a key.

See, the house next to Natasha’s has been empty for coming up to three months now, after Pepper got that job at Stark Industries, and normally Natasha is more aware of what goes on in her neighbourhood, but three months ago was also when James had his car crash so she’s had  _much more important things_  on her mind. She hasn’t been paying attention to what’s been going on with the house next door even a little bit.

Apparently a really hot blond guy called Clint bought it.

She walks back down the sidewalk a bit and then turns up the path for the house next door to Clint’s. She can see Clint’s eyes widen as she climbs the steps on to her own porch, put the key in the lock and open the door.

“I didn’t even know that house had been sold,” Natasha says, raising her voice so Clint can hear her.

“Holy shit,” Clint says softly, “No wonder you – ” He cuts himself off again and pats his dog on its head.

“This is so fucking weird,” he says after a moment.  “And, like, I get why you freaked out and I’m sorry. I’m not – like, you don’t know me and I can’t, like,  _prove_  this – obviously – but I wouldn’t do that. Ever. And, you know, if I did” – he shrugs – “you know where I live now so I’m fairly sure I’d get a beat down.”

There’s a  _meow_  from by her feet and she looks down to see Liho’s come through the open door and is judging her for the lack of head rubs.

“Whatever gives you that idea?” Natasha says, nudging Liho with her foot so she goes back inside before shutting the door.

“Well, you scared the shit out of that guy at the bar.”

Natasha moves to lean against the porch’s support pillar and notices that, one porch over, Clint is doing exactly the same. And goddamn his arms are glorious.

“You saw that?”

Clint grins. “You’re pretty noticeable.”

She grins in return, crossing her arms to emphasise her breasts just because she  _can,_  and also because she enjoys the way his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows reflexively.

Natasha makes a split second decision and then ducks around the pillar to wave at the cab driver. He gives her the thumbs up before getting in his car and driving away.

“What are you going to do about it then?” she asks, turning back to face Clint with a smirk tugging at her lips.

“Oh I can think of a few things. Though – ” He hesitates for a moment and then says, “This isn’t going to make it weird, is it?”

He gestures at between them, still leaning against the pillar, the lazy movement of his hand pretty neatly encompassing the fact that they’re next door neighbours.

Natasha leans on the porch railing. “Only if you make it weird.”

“Well then,” he pushes himself upright and grins at her, and Natasha stands up straight because she  _knows_  what’s coming and even with the brief moment of terror only ten minutes gone she can’t help but find this guy  _seriously_  fucking attractive, “I think that only leaves one remaining question.”

“Don’t say it,” Natasha says, her mock-warning tone ruined by her obvious amusement, but Clint ignores her, his smirk almost challenging.

“Your place or mine?”

Natasha laughs delightedly, heedless of the probably-sleeping families in the surrounding houses. “I dunno, whose place is closest?”

Clint grins. “Well, I think it’s pretty even, but mine has the advantage of currently being open.” He gestures to the still open door where his dog is sitting, head tilted to one side like it’s waiting for her decision as well. “Plus I make amazing breakfast waffles.”

“Hmm.” Natasha taps her fingers against her chin like this is the most difficult decision she’s had to make in ages. Clint gives her the most adorable imploring look.

“Sold,” she says, mouth curling up into a smile as she makes her way down her porch steps and over to his, “though there better be chocolate syrup.”

“Chocolate syrup _and_ orgasms,” he says as she steps onto his porch. He wraps an arm about her waist, hand resting just high enough on her ass not to immediately be considered groping.

“Well, I can’t turn down an offer like that,” she replies, leaning up for a kiss. “Lead the way, neighbour.”

 


End file.
